The present invention relates to the hot-rolling of metal workpieces, and more particularly to an arrangement for effecting such hot-rolling.
Metal workpieces, such as metal slabs, are conventionally passed over a roughing section of the rolling mill where they are rolled to a product having roughly the desired dimensions, and then passed over a finishing section of the rolling mill where the rough product is rolled to the final (finished) desired dimensions. At the end of the roughing section the rough product is taken up by coilers and is then fed to the finishing section.
In these known arrangements the roughing section and the finishing section are arranged in a common line and the coilers and uncoilers are located between the end of the roughing section and the start of the finishing section. It is desirable to be able to increase the weight and size of the coils of rough product, but this has not heretofore been possible because the in-line arrangement and the location of the coilers and uncoilers between the sections, have imposed space limitations which have frustrated all attempts at increasing coil size.